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BYTE.com > Chaos Manor > 2006

A Day at the Beach

By Jerry Pournelle

May 15, 2006

(A Day at the Beach :  Page 1 of 1 )



Several months ago I adopted Windows Anti-Spyware for both my main systems and my laptops. I still have Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy installed on those machines, but I only run them once in a while just to see if they catch anything that Microsoft's Spyware didn't see. So far the only things those programs have found are cookies. I don't worry about cookies, and those who do probably wear colanders for hats.

Meanwhile, Windows Anti-Spyware transmogrified into Windows Defender and Windows Live OneCare, and has taken over the job that Norton Anti-Virus used to do. On the theory that I do these silly things so you don't have to, on two of my main machines I have let my Norton Anti-Virus subscriptions lapse and turned Norton AV off, so that my only protection--other than my routers, and automatic updates to all my machine--has been Microsoft Windows Live OneCare. This has been the situation for a couple of months.

So far I have no reason to regret this.

Do understand: I have several computers that are protected by other means, including one that isn't networked and only receives data from sneakernet CD's. I have a number of test suites that I run periodically to make certain that Windows Live OneCare hasn't missed anything; I have complete backup files so that if I have to scrub a machine down to bare metal and restore it from scratch, I can do that. I don't want a virus infection, worm, or root kit, but if something of the sort strikes I am better equipped to get past that crisis than most of you.

Think of this as an interim report. So far, I am quite pleased with Windows Live OneCare. It has caught a number of infection attempts. It warns me when it sees something it doesn't understand--usually that's me installing something--and asks if I want to continue. It has done a good job of protecting my systems, and none of my test suites have found any malware on computers protected by Windows Live OneCare.

An additional note: Windows Live OneCare insists on checking your system to be sure that it is running "genuine Windows" before it will install.

 Page 1 of 1 


BYTE.com > Chaos Manor > 2006
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